God, Country, Notre Dame ... and Family

When Jim Leady tells the story of his first military deployment 10 years ago, there's a point where he pauses, then pauses again before giving up on trying to describe what the experience was like.

It is not when he recounts arriving in Iraq in 2005, and being the sole occupant of a zeppelin-sized tent constructed to house 100 troops. Odd as it was to be living in a virtual Army ghost town set in the alien sand-and-rock landscape, Leady didn't let the isolation get to him. He was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, an officer and reservist in the Army for more than a dozen years and a pragmatic guy by nature. The assignment was temporary, he had a job to do, and all the extra space wasn't such a bad thing.

Neither did the pause occur because he was reliving some harrowing battle scene. Leady, an assistant teaching professor in finance at Mendoza, didn't see combat. He was a logistics officer, stationed on a major base with 20,000 soldiers. He worked mostly in an office and felt about as safe as a person could in a war zone.

The question that caused pain to glass over his friendly gaze and choke off what had been a straightforward interview to that point was this: What was it like leaving your family?

"That was the worst day of my life," he finally says. "It's just like getting sucker-punched in the stomach."

This means a nine-month separation from his wife, Michelle, a pharmacist; his 16-year-old son, Josh, who would be getting his driver's license the week after Leady leaves; and his 12-year-old daughter.

"Kayla." Leady looks away briefly. "There's been a lot of tears. When I was considering getting back in, she did not want me to. She made that very clear, because she was so little the last time I went away. The things she knows about the Army are mostly based on the movies or TV."

Leady will be serving in Kuwait from May until February 2016. He will be part of a small, specialized 11-person petroleum liaison team that provides quality- and supervisory assurance for the U.S. Department of Defense field contracts with foreign nations. The unit also will be charged with overseeing the giant tank farms — essentially huge fabric pillows filled with fuel.

Here's a man who loves his wife, loves his kids, loves his job and loves his country, and who, as he sat in his office in early February, was preparing himself to reenact for a second time the scene he couldn't find words for — saying good-bye to his family.

By summer 2014, he had served 15 1⁄2 years in the Army; putting in another 4 1⁄2 would mean earning a full military pension. He decided to re-up and was assigned to a local South Bend unit. The chances of being deployed again seemed slim.

"Then in October, I got notified I was involuntarily transferred to the 690th Quartermaster Detachment," he recalls. Involuntary transfer — what does that mean? "That means they didn't ask me." Leady was on a short list of 20 names of reservists with the qualifications the Army needed for the deployment. A week later, he was at the top of the list. "I got a phone call from our detachment sergeant, and he actually couldn't even say it, because he knew I was going to be upset," says Leady. "He goes, ‘Major Leady, um ... uh.' I said, ‘Oh, don't even say it. I know what you're going to say.'

"And yes, my first thought was, ‘Oh boy, how do I tell my family?'"

We've become accustomed to seeing Hollywood dramatize stories like Leady's into epic proportions, with scripted dialogues and monologues about what an individual owes his country. But Leady is a quiet person who tells his story without drama; so much so, it's easy to underestimate that there is drama here, and pain, and purpose. He is perhaps the true Everyman — especially for those serving in the military — who find them- selves in a crucible of competing interests. And who find their way out.

"I had a lot of friends say, boy, why did you re-enlist? I didn't expect to be deployed, but now that I am, I'm not going to shirk my responsibility," Leady says. "I guess it's the integrity of it, too. It's just the right thing to do. If I had my choice, I'd rather stay home. But to answer the question of what people don't understand — I guess it's living up to that responsibility."

It's now mid-March, and Leady is stationed at Camp Atterbury in southern Indiana while he completes training in preparation for deployment, which has been pushed off slightly. The delay means he will get three more weeks at home. He's grateful for the extra time, even if they spend it just "hunkered down" as a family.

When the Chesterton, Indiana, native decided to re-up in the reserves in 2014, it was at least in part a business decision.

Here's a man who loves his wife, loves his kids, loves his job and loves his country, and who, as he sat in his office in early February, was preparing himself to reenact for a second time the scene he couldn't find words for — saying good-bye to his family. He would be leaving at the end of the month to begin training for another deployment.

Leady had followed his older brother Bill to West Point, where he graduated with a BS in Economics in 1991. He subsequently served for four years as an active duty officer stationed with the 25th Light Infantry Division in Hawaii, where in short order he completed Ranger School, Airborne School, Air Assault School, Sapper Leader Course and a number of other special programs. He then returned to graduate school at the University of Michigan, earning his MA in economics in 1997, a graduate certificate in complex systems in 2002, and his doctorate in Economics in 2011.

After returning from Iraq, Leady accepted a position as an assistant teaching professor in Mendoza's finance department in 2006. He teaches economics courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. He also volunteers as adviser to the undergraduate Finance Club and mentor through programs at Notre Dame and the South Bend School Corporation.

At the same time, Leady continued to serve in the military in a variety of roles, including company commander, an ROTC instructor, a liaison officer and a logistics officer. He taught economics and military leadership courses at a number of schools — University of Kentucky, Centre College and University of Notre Dame-Australia.

And a homecoming, even a temporary one, is really what lies at the heart of all good epics.